Demopolis

Or Everybody Needs To Be Somewhere.




It is high time that I fired up my fingers and let everyone know what the heck has happened to us.  It isn't that we are having any more bad luck; it is simply that I haven't taken the time to up-date the blog. We are currently taking another "break" from our Florida to Tennessee cruise and enjoying a little R&R back in our hometown of Kingsport, TN.

Here is an aerial photo of Demopolis

After leaving Bobby's Fish Camp, we headed for Demopolis, AL, about 100 miles up the Tombigbee River.  Our engines perked along smoothly.  It seems that all the troubles we have encountered thus far have added up to a great education.   We now know more about this boat that we ever would have dreamed. While I can't recommend "reckless abandon" as a method of doing things, I can recommend "Get Er Done", to coin a phrase.  You simply can't allow yourself to become paralyzed and try to figure out every little thing that might go wrong.  It might be a different scenario if the cruising we are doing was off shore or into foreign waters, but that hasn't been the case.  It is also a scenario that  wouldn't have suited my wife. She simply finds no pleasure in things not going smoothly.  Yet another reason for having sailed the boat home as opposed to shipping it is being able to have a self assured look on my face when she steps on board to take her first ride.  This has been a guy trip/thing.  I read a book about a fellow who bought an ocean crosser.  When it surveyed, it had three thousand things wrong with it.  He and three other very capable men, sailed it to Europe.  By the time they got there, they had two thousand of the items fixed.  A busy cruise to say the least!

Another plus is that each time we take a break and come home, I return with a car load of "stuff" to make life better on the boat.  And these things come about because of life's observations and conversation/brainstorming with Wayne or the other crew members. This series of shakedown cruises has been trouble shooting at its finest!

As we are approaching Demopolis, I am reading to Wayne out of our guide book.  It says here that they have large airport (runway length).  So I am thinking that there is the distinct possibility of also having rental cars.  Says they also have bus service so we could hop a Greyhound.  You see, Wayne is the reason for once again taking a hiatus from the boat trip.  He has a grandson graduating from college and the grad party/ slash fish-fry is going to be at Wayne's barn. And, of course, good grandpas for sure want to attend their grand kid's celebrations.

So we pulled into the gas dock and asked about leaving the boat in their marina for a month (a month being the magic number for cheaper docking).  They fixed us right up, and in no time at all, we were registered and tied up in our new home.  Then the other shoe dropped.

Here's the marina where the boat is parked. Notice the big tow boats fueling next to the bar. 

It seems that Demopolis does have a big long runway.  However we don't know why.  Because NO commercial traffic comes into their airport. Hence no rental cars.  They do, however, have a single loaner car for visiting general aviation pilots.  No help to the Sea Me Smile crew.

So let's see... plan "B" was Greyhound.  You guessed it, no Greyhound service in Demopolis.  I asked don't they even stop at Burger King and pick up the odd passenger?  No.  And do you know why?  Because they don't even have a Burger King, at least not that we saw.

At that point, there wasn't a plan "C"...  So we slept on it and bright 'n early the next morning, while having my morning coffee, I started brain storming.  I called my son, Sean, (yeah, you've read about him in one of my earlier meanderings) and I asked if he could get away from work for a couple of days and come pick us up.  He got back to me in about an hour and said he could swing it.  So we solved the problem.

But here's a foot note for you.  I have always considered myself a good networker. I like to work out a problem and I always look to the locals to recommend solutions.  Well, we tried networking in the wrong place, the bar.  It was filled with young people and mostly not boaters.  Our first clue should have been when they started putting sound board in the windows before the band started.  And later that evening we were glad they had!

So the true networking started the next evening when "the boat crowd" gathered at the river.  Not really, they gather up by the laundry room.  Chairs, a deck shade and with a little luck, a breeze.  The cocktails start to flow and now there is information to be had.  
Many of these people are live a-boards.  One lady was talking about her van and I asked how do you manage to have a vehicle and move about on your boat, while calling home nowhere in particular except the boat.  "Oh", she says,  "When we move to a place and intend on staying there awhile, we try to buy a used vehicle.  We use it while there and then sell it just before we depart.  In fact if I had known that you needed to get to Greyhound, for the price of gas and lunch, I would have driven you the 38 miles to Mississippi to catch the bus or rent a car." ( Oh, where were you, Honey, when I needed you?!)    So the moral to the story is you have to network in the right place.  You see, they knew how to get there and what towns you had to go to to make arrangements.

Since my return home, I have spent time in Manassas, Virginia, the sight of one of the first big battles of the Civil War where folks from Washington D.C. came out in their carriages and with picnic baskets for a day of entertainment and then ended up fleeing when they realized this was really going to be a war and not a spectator sport.

Next, I headed down to Savannah, Georgia for a couple of days.  Checked out the water front and old Savannah.  Now I'm home again trying to get our Lake House whipped into shape for the summer activities.  We'll return to the boat right after the end of the month, Memorial Day, festivities and bring her up a few more miles toward Knoxville.  These two week stints seem to be working well for us.  We just need to slow down and enjoy it a little more.  I think that because of all the break downs and hold ups, we have it in our heads that we have to hurry and make up that lost time.  But it would be a shame to rush a trip like this.... there's too much to see and enjoy along the way, even if it's just a little more cat fishing.